Classic Covers: Akatsuki – Soldier of Fortune

Akatsuki is wellknown here at Moshville Towers, being a solo musician who throws his projects our way once in a while with a “check this out and let me know what you think”. He’s in this for the love of the music, much like all of us here, and he loves feedback on his efforts. So if you do check this track out, please do leave him a comment.

I confess that I’m not familiar with the original “Soldier of Fortune” song – I had to dig on YouTube to find it. Yes, I know it’s Deep Purple, and yes I know my ignorance probably loses me kudos points. I can live with that. If it helps, after finding it and giving it a listen I can state that it’s very good. A like a nice acoustic or acoustic-led ballad now and again and they’re a genre that’s been around for many years with a multitude of absolute classics amongst them.

As Akatsuki says in his description of his version, this is the first cover he’s done where he’s not messed with the “mechanics” of the original. How, he states, can you mess with Blackmore? It’s also the first song he’s done where he’s played all the instruments on the track.

In my opinion all the hard work he says he’s put in was most definitely not wasted. As one commenter has pointed out, there’s a bit of reverb or echo on the recording, and that does make it different from the original. I actually don’t mind it – it lends it a very sixties feel, perhaps a tad “Beatles-y”. Once or twice it sounded like the vocals were clipped a bit, so a tinker with the amplification may be in order… but I’m being picky.

For a track recorded by one guy and put together by him, this is a damn fine amateur effort. If you’re familiar with the original, give it three minutes or so of your time and let Akatsuki know what you think. If you don’t have Flash installed (and fewer people do these days!) the song can be listened to via this link, where you can also leave comments.